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Defeated by his own MPs, his leadership rejected, the former
Opposition leader made it back to the sanctuary of his office with
his composure intact.

But when his wife, Susie Annus, threw her arms around him as he
came through the door, flanked by staunch supporters Julia Irwin,
Michael Hatton, Kim Wilkie and Jennie George, tears appeared in his
eyes.

Ms Irwin declared the result a brutal tragedy. "Kim Beazley is
one of Labor's great leaders," she said. "And today he has been
denied becoming prime minister of Australia."

Ms Annus was on the brink. "Don't say that  I'm going to
cry," she warned.

Over the next half hour, other backers, such as NSW Left
powerbroker Anthony Albanese dropped by to offer support. And then
came the phone call that took Mr Beazley's political tragedy and
compounded it with a personal one.

As Mr Beazley went into his personal office, a staffer beckoned
Ms Annus to take a call just outside. As she talked, tears welled,
and she rubbed her neck.

Then she went in to break the news to her husband that his
younger brother, David, had died, aged only 53, from a suspected
heart attack that morning. Supporters took their leave, but not
without some urging that Mr Beazley should cancel his press
conference.

But Mr Beazley, never a man to shirk duty, insisted on pressing
ahead. As he stood at the podium, declaring his commission as
leader had been terminated, his voice was thick with grief. As he
thanked his wife and family, it gave way altogether, for what
seemed like an eternity as he fought to suppress a sob.

"Family is everything," he finally declared.

It was a sad end to a political career that promised so
much.

The son of a former Labor minister, Kim Beazley snr, he was
slated for big things once he went into Parliament in 1980 and then
moved rapidly through a series of ministries to become deputy prime
minister to Paul Keating in 1995. Over the years, many had cast him
as a man who would make a great prime minister, but was too decent
to be a truly effective Opposition leader.

The former Labor prime minister Bob Hawke endorsed that view as
he paid tribute to Mr Beazley's quarter century in public life,
including five years as his defence minister.

"It's a tragedy," Hawke told The Age. "When you think of
what he did in 1998  it was the best performance by a leader
of the Opposition in the history of Federation.

"A redistribution of 12,000 votes and he would have become PM.
Then in 2001 he was beaten by Tampa and 9/11. He has been
unlucky."

Mr Hawke recalled former US secretary of state George Schultz
and former defence secretary Cap Weinberger confiding in him that
Mr Beazley was the most impressive defence minister they had ever
dealt with.

It was a view echoed by senior military and security experts, Mr
Hawke said.

Mr Beazley and his wife left Caberra on a government VIP jet
yesterday headed for Perth to console his elderly parents.

As he did so, Prime Minister John Howard joined the tributes to
his political career, declaring his adversary a "very decent"
man.

"It's a brutal game, politics, and it's all happened in a way
that must be very hurtful to him, but I wish him well," he told
Parliament.

Mr Beazley himself was circumspect about the prospects of any
further resurrections in his political career.

"For me to do anything further in the Australian Labor Party, I
would say would be Lazarus with a quadruple bypass," he said.

"And so the time has come for me to move on."

But not without a moment of candid reflection on whether he had
any regrets.

"Do you think I'd go for 25 years in politics without a single
regret?" he said.

"Only about 4332 of them."

After its crushing defeat of 1996, Labor turned to Mr Beazley to
rebuild its fortunes.

He led the party through two other difficult elections, helping
Labor claw back seats against a xenophobic political tidal wave
that threatened to wipe it out in 2001, before handing the
leadership to Simon Crean.

In 2003, believing Labor's fortunes sunk, he challenged Mr Crean
for the top job and lost.

Six months later he lost a second ballot to a Crean protege,
Mark Latham, but returned unopposed once Mr Latham's leadership
imploded in January 2005.

Mr Hatton declared the final press conference a triumph of
professionalism.